A grolar bear in the Arctic Steven J. Kazlowski/Alamy Meet our story’s protagonist: a female polar bear. Displaced by shrinking sea ice in the Arctic, she was forced to wander south, deeper into the Canadian Northwest Territories. Here, our lady in white encountered a couple of handsome grizzly bears. She fell for both of them…
December 8, 2025 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Tsunami Warnings Issued in Japan after Magnitude 7.6 Earthquake Japanese officials said to expect a tsunami of up to 3 meters in some areas after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron An…
The supernova remnant Cassiopeia A NASA/JPL-Caltech/O. Krause (Steward Observatory) Hidden within Cassiopeia A, the youngest known exploded star in our galaxy, astronomers have found surprisingly high levels of chlorine and potassium. These elements carry an odd number of protons in their atomic nuclei, and though they are thought to be less abundant in the universe,…
December 8, 2025 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano Absolutely Destroys This Webcam in a Fiery New Video Hawaii’s Kilauea, one of Earth’s most active volcanoes, sent lava fountains spewing into the air, obliterating a U.S. Geological Survey camera By Andrea Thompson edited by Claire Cameron Lava fountains are seen…
Marco_Piunti/Getty Images Wait, stop scrolling! How long have you been on your phone today? Is social media rotting your brain? We are constantly asking questions like these, but just how worried should you be about your screen time? There are literally hundreds of thousands of studies looking at screen time, and many of them have…
Some 115 million years ago, a veritable fleet of giant predators prowled the waters near Australia. There were long-necked plesiosaurs, snaggletoothed pliosaurs with massive heads, dolphinlike ichthyosaurs, and now — suggests new fossil findings — 8-meter-long sharks. The findings, published October 25 in Communications Biology, push back the age of the earliest giant lamniform sharks…
December 8, 2025 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Chernobyl Nuclear Plant’s Protective Shield Has Been Damaged for Months The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster remains damaged, but so far, radiation levels outside the plant have not increased, according to officials By Claire Cameron edited by Andrea Thompson The “Elephant’s Foot”…
When Eli Susman arrived at a Buddhist retreat, he expected to spend most of his time there in deep meditation. After all, the Plum Village Monastery to the east of Bordeaux, France, had been established by Thich Nhat Hanh, sometimes known as the “father of mindfulness”. With a newcomer’s enthusiasm, he decided to test how…
Tantalizing results from small trials and anecdotes raised hopes that drugs like Ozempic could help. Despite setbacks, researchers aren’t giving up yet.
A wildfire burns in the hills of a Los Angeles suburb, leaping from one patch of dry brush to another as it approaches a cluster of homes. The landscaping at the first house burns, but the house itself stubbornly refuses to catch fire: any small flames that start along its walls or roof quickly die…
